Ratings disgrace: Dastyari’s TV debut beaten by SBS movie repeat

Is the former Labor politician's TV career over before it began?

The debut episode of Disgrace – hosted by former Labor senator Sam Dastyari – has been out-rated by a last-minute movie repeat on SBS.

Disgrace is part of Channel Ten’s “pilot week”, in which the network screens single episodes of various light entertainment programs. Those that attract the best response from viewers – gauged by social media praise, votes on the TenPlay website and catch-up ratings – will be commissioned for a full season.

Disgrace, which aired at 8.30pm on Sunday, averaged just 304,000 viewers (including regional audiences). On SBS, a hastily-arranged screening of The Blues Brothers – a tribute to the late Aretha Franklin – averaged 316,000. ABC’s Rake topped the time slot with 1.04 million, followed by Nine’s 60 Minutes on 910,000 and Seven’s Sunday Night averaging 877,000.

It may appear that Dastyari’s fledgling panel show is doomed – but don’t be surprised if it returns next year.

Sam Dastyari hosts panel show Disgrace.Credit:Ten

The show was never going to beat its established (and popular) rivals on ABC or the commercial networks. Its biggest problem was the program that preceded it at 8pm: Skit Happens.

On social media, reaction to the sketch comedy was overwhelmingly negative.

This is consistent with its minute-by-minute ratings. In the five major capitals, Skit Happens began with 577,000 viewers. Ten minutes later, it had crashed to 338,000. By the end, just 313,000 city viewers were still tuned in. (Including regional audiences, it averaged 484,000.)

Disgrace concluded with an audience of just 197,000 (and Ten will not thank me for pointing that out). But Disgrace shed fewer viewers, and declined by a smaller percentage, than Skit Happens.

More encouragingly, it enjoyed at least some praise on Twitter; a platform not renowned for its generosity.

Ten has not released the results its viewer poll but on the TV Tonight blog, Disgrace is well ahead of Skit Happens. At the time of writing, almost 40 per cent of respondents said they would watch Disgrace again, while 21 per cent said they wouldn't. Compare this to Skit Happens: only 21 per cent want to see more, while 59 per cent do not. (Those who answered “maybe” or “didn’t see it” account for the outstanding percentages.)

My bet is this: Disgrace will attract a bigger catch-up audience and more viewer votes than Skit Happens. It certainly stands a better chance of being turned into a full series.

These aren’t the most glorious time slots available and it’s unlikely any particular pilot will rate through the roof. Indeed, the mere existence of pilot week reveals the extent of Ten’s struggles; a network with a full slate of popular programs doesn’t need to take such risks.

This also means Ten has the least to lose. If it plays this right – and does not allow itself to be spooked by overnight ratings – it could turn one or two of these shows into hits.

“We are very happy to have kicked off pilot week with some original entertainment and comedy and really appreciate the efforts of all our contributors,” said Ten's programming chief, Beverley McGarvey.

“We’ll be looking at a range of measures over the coming weeks before we make any decisions on which pilots to commission to a full series. We look forward to sharing the rest of the shows with audiences and hearing their feedback.”